Remember the Big-Wheel

Do you remember the Big-Wheel?

Cruising around the block as fast as you could all summer long. The wind in your hair (helmets were not in then). By the end of the summer the front wheel was usually more of a square than a circle, but that didn't matter because you still looked cool cruising around.

My sister and I had pink big wheels and loved cruising around on them. Then one day some new neighbors moved in. They had two boys who were about our age. Every time we would head out on our awesome Big-Wheels they would come out and get on theirs and chase us and yell things in Spanish to us. We did not speak Spanish and I am not sure if they spoke English. I just remember trying to plan our rides when they might NOT come out and chase us.

Josh's Grandma brought him a Big-Wheel the other day. He instantly loved it, and he couldn't wait to ride it. His legs are a little short for it, but I am sure by the end of the summer his wheel will be a square, and he will still look awesome.

Emily's Program

Yesterday was the 4th grade program at Emily's school. I love to go to the programs to see what the kids have been learning. This year Emily has been studying Utah and everything great about our state. 4th grade is also the year in music class that they get to learn how to play the recorder. Emily has been practicing hard with her recorder and was really excited for us to come. It was fun to see her. She loves to perform in these programs and gave it her all. Here are a few video highlights.

This was my favorite song done on the recorder. If you like Amazing grace on the bagpipes you will love it done with one hundred 4th graders playing it on their recorders.

I wanted to post a video of them singing but after trying all day yesterday I could not get anymore videos to download.

There were twelve numbers total in the program. About half were singing and half on the recorder. I love it that Emily loves to perform because it makes the programs fun to watch. I think they all did a great job.

Family Bike Ride

Something our family likes to do is ride bikes.
Ryan has always liked to ride and tries to get out everyday when the weather is good. On Saturday He had planned to go for a ride with Emily and his parents. They got up early and started getting ready to go. The boys caught on to what was happening and started pleading their case as to why they needed to go too. Suddenly, the workout Ryan was hoping for had turned into a leisurely family outing. We loaded up the bikes and headed to a local path.

Josh wanted to ride his scooter instead of riding in the bike cart or riding his Shark bike, so I came along so I could walk next to him.

Emily loves riding, and has gotten good enough that she can keep a pretty good pace with her dad.

Joe did a really good job riding with the group and had lots of fun until Ryan told him it was time to turn around and head back towards the car. He wanted to make it to the end of the trail. I don't think he realized that the trail went on for miles and that there was no way he would be able to make it to the end
He even refused to stand by his bike for a picture. He was pretty tired when he got through. They ended up riding about 3 1/2 miles.

The kids had a great time riding with their grandparents and dad. It was a fun way to start off the Memorial Day weekend.

Tractors and Trucks

Every spring and fall the city we live in offers a bulk trash day where you can pile up all of your big trash and they come and take it to the dump for you. This week it was our turn. We had a small pile consisting of a few tree branches, but on Tuesday someone came by and dumped a whole truck load of stuff right in our pile. Unfortunately I was not fast enough to get a license plate so we just had to live with this huge pile in front of our house, without anyone getting in trouble for it. I guess it matched the lawn, and luckily it was all legal stuff for the pick up. That evening it rained and Josh asked why the beavers built a dam in our street.

(you can't tell from the picture, but the pile also goes halfway into the street)

This morning the trucks and tractors pulled into our neighborhood to take all of the stuff away. The boys were really excited and tried to wait patently on the porch for them to get to our pile.

Joe wanted to take some pictures of it so I let him use my camera. He got some fun pictures.

(He took all of the ones he is not in.)

In the end it was more fun to have a big pile for them to take away, because the big trucks and tractor stayed longer. The boys were really excited when the dump truck pulled into our driveway. They also thought it was great that our pile filled the whole truck.

What Happened?

One of the things I would change about this house if we owned it is the yard. The Sprinkling system is set up in a way that there is no way to grow things on the sides of the house without having to manually water it. There were so many weeds there when we moved in that 3 years later I am still fighting them off. Also the soil is so sandy that getting anything, even grass, to grow takes a lot of effort and extra water. There is also a lot of Crab Grass mixed in with the real lawn. My dad joked with us that if we bought the crab grass killing fertilizer we would not have a lawn at all.

The first summer we were here, there were huge patches of holes in the lawn were there was no grass. In the front yard and the back. We have gotten the front yard to fill in pretty well by changing some sprinklers and a little grass seed. (The back yard is still a work in progress.)



This spring we have had lots of moisture so the need for sprinklers was not as urgent. This is a good thing for us because we have to let the property management company turn on our system so we are not liable for anything. This can sometimes take them a while. I was watching our lawn and it was still green and doing good, so I didn't water yet. Ryan mowed the lawn a couple of times and it was green and lush. Then one day suddenly it was dry and dying. I was not looking forward to having to go out and drag the hose around to water the lawn, but just when I was about to the guys showed up to turn on the water. The thing I did not understand was that our next door neighbor has just as bad of soil as we do, never waters, mows or does anything with his lawn and what he has of a lawn was still very green.







The maintenance men commented and asked me what happened to the lawn, but I had no idea. Except that we have to be really diligent about watering it when it gets hot in the summer, but I have never had it die like this in the spring. So they turned on the sprinklers and ran them. Usually if the grass starts to dry out we just water it an extra time and it bounds right back. The next morning I heard the sprinklers going again. I thought oh good. It seemed to really need the water yesterday it could probably use the extra.


When I went out that morning I noticed that not only was the lawn not rebounding but it truly looked dead. Again the neighbors unkept lawn was still long and a lush green.


I didn't worry too much because the sprinklers were up and running now so the lawn would bounce back it always does. Then that afternoon I got a call from the property management company. He started off by saying I don't know what your lawn looks like today..........


I thought, "Oh no the maintenance men went back and told them that we are not taking care of the yard." But that sentence was followed by an explanation of why our lawn had died.




The fertilizing company that they send out accidentally sprayed our lawn with their mixture of a weed killer like Round Up, instead of fertilizer. Hence the lawn is going to die no matter what we do so turn the water off.


I have to say I was relieved, and there are some great benefits from this. We don't have to water for now so our water bill will not go up yet. The lawn is not growing, so we don't have to mow it. And the fertilizing company is going to come in the next few weeks and take out the old lawn and put in sod. So hopefully, we will have a nice lawn this summer.

As for the lawn right now. Please don't judge us. It wasn't our fault.

Spring Program

Joseph likes going to preschool and he has learned a lot this year. He has even started to read a little. He loves his teachers Mrs Sarah and Mrs Linda.

Today was their Spring program. They have been working on it for months and we got to go see some of the fun songs, dances and poems they have been learning this year. There were about 15 numbers on the program so I can't put the whole thing on but I wanted to share a couple of highlights.

Joseph got so into the actions on this song that he punched himself in the face. He tried really hard not to cry, but you can tell he really hurt himself. I am proud of him for just continuing on. This is a sign of a true performer. "The show must go on."

My favorite number was the dance. Joseph and his partner Sadie really got into the hand slapping.

This last one was Joseph's favorite song. I could tell as soon as it started, because he got a big smile on his face and smiled through most of it.

Josh and I had a fun time at the program. Joseph and his class all did a really great job!

Joshua's Surgery

Yesterday was Joshua's turn for surgery.

He was having an endoscopy, tonsillectomy and an adnoidectomy. He was really excited to go to the hospital. The day before I tried to talk to him about what was going to happen and how he would feel after, but every time I got to the part about it hurting he would change the subject. I started off by saying "Josh you get to have surgery tomorrow. Do you know what that means?" He excitedly said, "It means I get prizes!" Joe did so well after his surgery that all Josh noticed were the gifts from their grandma's that he got after. Josh was in for a big surprise.

We took the train elevator up to the floor and then got checked in. It had been kind of a rough morning, because Josh was not allowed food after midnight and we were not scheduled to check in until 10:45am . By the time we started the checking in process he was getting pretty grouchy. He did OK with the nurses exam until they told him he had to change out of his favorite clothes into the hospital pajamas. He did not like them at all. He was also mad that we had him put a pull-up on. He is fully potty trained now and just wears a Pull-up at night so this was an insult. Once they finished the examination we headed into the waiting room where we were told that they were behind schedule so we were going to have about a two hour wait. (When we got home that night there was a message from the hospital telling us to come an hour later, but we had already left) I was worried, because I knew Josh was hungry, but he seemed to have forgotten about food and was content playing video games.

I was doing pretty well until the anesthesiologist came out and started talking to us. He was very nice, but he was German and with his strong accent it almost felt like we were being interrogated. He was very descriptive and he was pretty blunt...."Ve Vill put an IV in him. It may take three or four tries....I vill incubate him by putting a tube down his throat and there vill be blood."......... Later Ryan and I laughed about it.

Josh went somewhat willingly to his surgery. Meaning he did not cry, but he had a worried look on his face. Especially when the anesthesiologist took his blanket from him and said "I vill carry the blanket, you say good bye to your mom and dad."


Everything went just fine with the surgery, but when Josh woke up he was not happy. We got him calmed down and they gave him some pain medication, so he was able to get some more sleep. When he woke up from his nap he was surprisingly happy. He loved drinking his slushi's and when we got his dinner he ate it right up. He even continued using the potty even though he had a pull-up on. I don't know if the nurse was very excited about the potty trips, because Josh kept trying to skip down the hall. He was even talking to us, but you could tell it hurt.

Around dinner time Grandpa came for a visit. Josh was happy to see him.

Shortly after Grandma brought Joe and Emily up to see Josh. Josh was happy to see them too, but his meds were wearing off and it seemed to be too much for him. Suddenly he started demanding that they go home, and he wanted to go home too. They brought him a few things to play with in the hospital and a couple of movies to watch. After they left he was still pretty mad until the pain meds kicked in again and Grandpa rocked him in the rocking chair for a few minutes.

Ryan took on the fun duty of staying the night with Josh and neither one of them got very much sleep. They arrived home at 8:30 this morning and Josh has been pretty grumpy the whole day. He was excited to get his "prizes" and tried to play with them a little, but a lot of the day was spent sitting with me on the couch crying because his mouth hurts. We have been doing our best to get liquids in him and by this evening he had calmed down and was not complaining as much. I have been told that day three is the worst and then it gets better after that.

I was surprised how stressful it is to have your kids go through surgery. I am so grateful that everything went well with both boys and that they both seem to be recovering well.

Thanks for all of the help from our family and friends getting through these last two weeks. We could not have done it without you.